The present invention relates to combine harvesters and, more particularly, to an improved beater for transferring incoming crop material from the feeder housing to the inlet of the threshing rotor of an axial flow combine.
A variety of beater designs are currently used on commercially available combines. For example, some beaters utilize straight bars, plain or serrated, that run the full longitudinal length of the beater and extend at right angles to the flow path so as to aggressively feed the crop materials. Others utilize claws, pegs, teeth, strips, helical vanes, and various combinations of the foregoing, most at swept back angles. Helical, center-gathering vanes or auger flighting are often used to help converge the material centrally as it is propelled into the narrower inlet of the threshing rotor.
One problem with current designs is that they only efficiently convey limited crop types in limited conditions. Moreover, some beater types are so aggressive that they propel corn cobs at high velocity against interior walls of the combine, creating an extremely noisy working environment for the operator, and potentially causing seed or machine damage. Some beaters tend to wrap and recycle crop materials more than others; some tend to feed high moisture content materials in bunches rather than separate it thoroughly to provide even threshing; some handle viney materials more efficiently than others; and some are not particularly effective at feeding granular materials.
The present invention provides an infeed beater that performs more efficiently in extended crop types and conditions. Its function is to receive the crop material from the raddle feed chain and accelerate and transfer it to the inlet flighting of the threshing rotor. It provides for smooth, even crop feeding with minimal wrap around and recycling, even in high moisture content conditions. At the same time, it serves to converge the crop materials centrally to ease their entry into the inlet of the threshing rotor assembly. Furthermore, the beater of the present invention provides for relatively quiet operation, with reduced cob velocities when harvesting corn.
In one preferred embodiment, the present invention comprises a beater in which the cylindrical body of the device has a number of angled feeding segments distributed along its length and about its circumference. The segments each comprise a flat, untwisted plate that has a generally arcuate overall configuration, presenting an inner arcuate edge and an outer arcuate edge that is substantially concentric with the inner edge. The arcuate nature of the inner edge allows the plate to be disposed angularly on the periphery of the body or drum of the beater so as to partially wrap around the drum while also extending longitudinally along the surface of the drum. Each plate is provided with a hardened, crop-engaging face and is detachably secured to the drum by round head, square neck bolts that fasten the plate to a corresponding mounting bar welded to the periphery of the drum.
The plate segments are arranged as a group of left hand feeding segments and a group of right hand feeding segments in opposite end halves of the beater. Both groups of segments thus cooperate to converge crop materials toward the middle or center at the same time that they are being propelled rearwardly toward the inlet of the axial threshing rotor. The group of segments at one end of the beater are arranged in diametrically opposed sets, with each set including at least one and preferably two or three of the segments. Groups at opposite ends of the beater are circumferentially offset 90xc2x0 from one another so that, every 90xc2x0 of rotation of the beater, a set of feeding segments in a different end half of the beater is presented. Preferably, an equal quantity of segments are provided at the left hand feeding end and the right hand feeding end. The lengths of the segments are such that, overall, their feeding faces effectively provide a full length feeding surface along the beater notwithstanding the fact that some of the surfaces are circumferentially offset from others.